Spacecraft development

[Bernie Roehl]

At last count, there may be as many as a dozen new spacecraft in development that will be capable of taking a crew into low earth orbit.

Leaving aside the question of how many of these efforts will be successful, it seems clear that developing such a craft is much, much simpler than developing a launch vehicle.

So... what's involved?

Obviously you need the pressure vessel itself, with windows and hatches and (for most vehicles) a docking adapter.  You need a temperature control system, with external radiators.  You need an air purification system to remove CO2 and water vapor and replenish the oxygen.  You need some sort of RCS.  You need communications gear, telemetry, control systems and miscellaneous avionics.  You need a parachute recovery system (unless you're using a lifting body).  You need a power source (fuel cells, batteries or solar cells).  You need acceleration couches for the crew.  You need a launch abort system.

For orbital flight, you just need to add a TPS, including a heat shield (typically Avcoat or PICA).

To be perfectly honest... none of that seems like rocket science.  :-)

The hardest part would be the aerodynamic modeling, and most of that work has already been done for the basic shapes.

Of course, this isn't really my field, so it's entirely possible I'm missing something.  I'd be interested in hearing from people who have actually done this sort of work.

P.S. For those who are wondering about the dozen vehicles in development, here are the ones I'm thinking of: Dragon, Dream Chaser, "Orion Lite" (Boeing/Bigelow), Orion (Lockheed-Martin), Blue Origin's orbital spacecraft, Gemini IR (AIO-50), Excalibur Almaz, Interorbital's CM-2 and CM-6, India's OV (possibly to be Soyuz-based), Rus, and whatever Iran claims to be working on.

[William Barton]

Something that gets overlooked in discussions of manned capsule-type spacecraft is that much of the sophistication and complexity of design we see is just that. Going back to basics, we should remember that the USSR based its initial manned reentry capsule on the well-known aerodynamics of a sphere. The Vostok spacecraft, however "primitive," conducted a program of 8 manned flights (the two Voskhod vehicles were modified Vostoks) that included the first EVA, and had numerous follow-on unmanned derivitives that have flown a very large number of missions (e.g, the Foton series, which has flown as recently as the past few years). In principle, it would be fairly straightforward to develop a manned spacecraft with a spherical reentry vehicle, using modified standard satellite bus as a service module. Think in terms of the OSC Cygus, with the pressurized "can" replaced by a big ball. Or for that matter, since Foton M-3 flew in 2007, simply buying new ones from Kozlov and re-adapting them for human crew.

[Jim]

To be perfectly honest... none of that seems like rocket science.  :-)

The integration and system engineering of all that is "rocket science"


PS.  You forgot rendezvous sensors.

[Swatch]

Awww c'mon Jim.... that's why we have eyeballs right?   

[Antares]

Software. I'm continually amazed at how it's the laggard in many developments. Because ALL of the other active systems must have it, they're usually understaffed and they have to wait for the other systems to be somewhat designed before the software can be designed. Coding is the easy part. It's the algorithms and interfaces that take time.

[Cog_in_the_machine]

At last count, there may be as many as a dozen new spacecraft in development that will be capable of taking a crew into low earth orbit.

Leaving aside the question of how many of these efforts will be successful, it seems clear that developing such a craft is much, much simpler than developing a launch vehicle.

Perhaps it is simpler, but if that's so then the hard part is developing a launch vehicle, meaning that everything hinges on that. As far as private companies go SpaceX is closest to having a LEO capable vehicle and everyone knows about them, but what will the other companies use?

[Rabidpanda]

At last count, there may be as many as a dozen new spacecraft in development that will be capable of taking a crew into low earth orbit.

Leaving aside the question of how many of these efforts will be successful, it seems clear that developing such a craft is much, much simpler than developing a launch vehicle.

Perhaps it is simpler, but if that's so then the hard part is developing a launch vehicle, meaning that everything hinges on that. As far as private companies go SpaceX is closest to having a LEO capable vehicle and everyone knows about them, but what will the other companies use?

Atlas or Delta.  Not every commercial company has to be like SpaceX and build every single piece of hardware including the launch vehicle.  It's perfectly acceptable for them to buy launches for their spacecraft from ULA.

[Cog_in_the_machine]

Atlas or Delta.  Not every commercial company has to be like SpaceX and build every single piece of hardware including the launch vehicle.  It's perfectly acceptable for them to buy launches for their spacecraft from ULA.

I thought so. That's good news, cause ULA will start getting more orders coming in. I guess the reason SpaceX sticks out is precisely because they did develop everything they use, but it will probably be a while before another company does the same.

[mr. mark]

It's my person opinion that Dreamchaser is a money pit and will never fly. The vehicle is too heavy for most of the commercial launchers, it must have very advanced flight systems compared to a capsule design and must use a push type LAS which will not be off the shelf similar to Orbital's LAS system. If it ever does fly, It won't be able to come online until well after 2020,long after Spacex, Boeing or LM are already flying. Blue Orgin is a CIA front (which everybody in the industry knows about. It seems the only people who won't admit it's true is the government, the worst kept secret in CIA history) and will never fly anything at least to orbital, another money pit. The only realistic flight vehicles are Dragon (falcon 9), Boeing or Lockheed Martin based capsule designs.   

[mmeijeri]

Regarding Dream Chaser: its hybrid propulsion system could see double duty as a LAS, as this is what was planned for HL-20 on which it is based. Buzz Aldrin has claimed HL-20 could be ready sooner than Orion. Just reporting, not necessarily agreeing.

[mmeijeri]

The now out of date NSTS 1988 News Reference Manual gives a nice hyperlinked overview of all Orbiter systems. It may be useful for comparison.

[Jim]

1.  It's my person opinion that Dreamchaser is a money pit and will never fly. The vehicle is too heavy for most of the commercial launchers, it must have very advanced flight systems compared to a capsule design

2.  and must use a push type LAS which will not be off the shelf similar to Orbital's LAS system.

3.  If it ever does fly, It won't be able to come online until well after 2020,long after Spacex, Boeing or LM are already flying.

4. Blue Orgin is a CIA front (which everybody in the industry knows about. It seems the only people who won't admit it's true is the government, the worst kept secret in CIA history) and will never fly anything at least to orbital, another money pit. The only realistic flight vehicles are Dragon (falcon 9), Boeing or Lockheed Martin based capsule designs.   

Uninformed opinion, again.

1.  It is not too heavy.  It can fly on an Atlas 402 or 431

2.  It is doubtful that anyone can use OSC LAS as off the shelf.  Anyways, Dreamchaser uses motors similar to Spaceship one for pusher LAS.  The SpaceDev is the Dreamchaser and Spaceship one propulsion developer

3.  Based on what info?

4.  Huh?  What people in the industry?  State your sources. You are the only one I have heard this from.  Nothing but tinfoil hat speculation.

Your posts are nothing but disjointed unbased opinion

[FinalFrontier]

1.  It's my person opinion that Dreamchaser is a money pit and will never fly. The vehicle is too heavy for most of the commercial launchers, it must have very advanced flight systems compared to a capsule design

2.  and must use a push type LAS which will not be off the shelf similar to Orbital's LAS system.

3.  If it ever does fly, It won't be able to come online until well after 2020,long after Spacex, Boeing or LM are already flying.

4. Blue Orgin is a CIA front (which everybody in the industry knows about. It seems the only people who won't admit it's true is the government, the worst kept secret in CIA history) and will never fly anything at least to orbital, another money pit. The only realistic flight vehicles are Dragon (falcon 9), Boeing or Lockheed Martin based capsule designs.   

Uninformed opinion, again.

1.  It is not too heavy.  It can fly on an Atlas 402 or 431

2.  It is doubtful that anyone can use OSC LAS as off the shelf.  Anyways, Dreamchaser uses motors similar to Spaceship one for pusher LAS.  The SpaceDev is the Dreamchaser and Spaceship one propulsion developer

3.  Based on what info?

4.  Huh?  What people in the industry?  State your sources. You are the only one I have heard this from.  Nothing but tinfoil hat speculation.

Your posts are nothing but disjointed unbased opinion

I agree jim. "Blue Orgin is a CIA front (which everybody in the industry knows about. It seems the only people who won't admit it's true is the government, the worst kept secret in CIA history) and will never fly anything at least to orbital, another money pit. The only realistic flight vehicles are Dragon (falcon 9), Boeing or Lockheed Martin based capsule designs."

Than by that logic the lori garver is an alien sent from jupiter to reck our BEO plan so that we can be invaded!!!
ROFLMAO. 

[mr. mark]

Laugh all you want, the day dreamchaser flies and is competative pricewise against companies like Spacex, or Boeing or LM is the day I shut up about it. The dreamchaser program has the potential to be nothing but a money pit. I believe it's not a competative design and should not have been funded in CCDEV. As far as Blue Orgin there is a variety of sources stating that intelligence services are very interested in their suborbital space systems and that's why they were funded. I'll do some checking for you guys, it's not really off the main track. 

[Jim]

As far as Blue Orgin there is a variety of sources

Not valid or reliable ones.

[Jim]

Laugh all you want, the day dreamchaser flies and is competative pricewise against companies like Spacex, or Boeing or LM is the day I shut up about it.

Dreamchaser is in second place when it comes to development.  Spacex being first and every else a distance 3rd. 

Also Dreamchaser has Boeing as a subcontractor

[mmeijeri]

Dreamchaser is in second place when it comes to development.  Spacex being first and every else a distance 3rd. 

Is that because of prior work on HL-20?

Also Dreamchaser has Boeing as a subcontractor

According to this Aviation Week article SNC has some more heavyweight subcontractors: Draper Labs, Aerojet, MDA and maybe Oceaneering.

Sierra Nevada Building On NASA Design

[FinalFrontier]

Laugh all you want, the day dreamchaser flies and is competative pricewise against companies like Spacex, or Boeing or LM is the day I shut up about it. The dreamchaser program has the potential to be nothing but a money pit. I believe it's not a competative design and should not have been funded in CCDEV. As far as Blue Orgin there is a variety of sources stating that intelligence services are very interested in their suborbital space systems and that's why they were funded. I'll do some checking for you guys, it's not really off the main track. 

Oh excuse me I should have asked:
Are you Sarah Palin?
Are you Micheal Griffin?
Are you an Alien?

[Nascent Ascent]

Dreamchaser is very close to flying a manned crew.  It's already flown chimps!

[Bernie Roehl]

Software.

Well, yes... but how much software was there in the Mercury capsule, or Gemini for that matter?  Some of that code is available online, and it's relatively small.  Hard to read, because it's written in assembly language for a fairly strange processor architecture, but the algorithms themselves are not that complex.

Launch vehicle software is a different matter (though it too should reallyl be reusable, as discussed in another thread), but the software for a LEO spacecraft should be relatively straightforward.